


I Can Feel You Behind my Eyes

by NovelistAngel23



Series: The Blockbuster Ghost [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, M/M, implied depression, romantic fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 19:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4932103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovelistAngel23/pseuds/NovelistAngel23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some ghosts never leave you–some ghosts never get to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can Feel You Behind my Eyes

Some nights, Marco just doesn’t sleep. Dreams don’t come easily, staring up at the ceiling as the building creaks and settles into its old foundations.

Some nights, Marco thinks he can hear the ghosts that are rumored to haunt the building. They float through the crack in his bedroom door. He doesn’t have a nightlight, content to stare through the dark and imagine the names of these ghosts that won’t leave his room.

Mina is the name of the one that makes it hard to listen to music. (It stings in his ears now in a way it didn’t before—his body won’t flow the way it used to and he blames it on the way she grinned at him across the dance floor and matched her hips with his.)

Thomas—Tommy <3—is the one that makes it so hard to care about the way Eren flirts with him. (It burns in his throat now when he thinks about the things he could say—he remembers saying them to _him_ , holding his hand and kissing his lips. And the burn is all Marco’s, but he still blames it on him, this emptiness in his chest when he avoids Eren’s hopeful smiles.)

Daz is the one that makes it hard to connect when someone needs his reassurance. (It aches in his chest when he tries to say something to the people sobbing in front of him, because there are no words in there, there is no comfort he can offer them. He remembers it being easy, once upon a time, to hold someone close and whisper to them sweet nothings that made the world easier to bear. Today he can’t find nothings even for himself, and he blames him for taking them all.)

Mother and Father are the ones that make it hard to feel like himself. (He can’t anymore, just can’t. When he looks at his hands, sometimes he starts in surprise because they aren’t his, can’t be his. He feels outside of his body sometimes, unless he focuses. And he blames them for taking pieces of him with them when they went away so long ago now.)

And Marco ignores the way his eyesight blurs as he stares up at the ceiling. He blames the clear tracks that drip into his hairline on the fingertips of ghosts that haunt him—the house—the space between his eyes and the back of his head.

He thinks, _This is it, your second chance, don’t mess it up_.

He was supposed to begin again, but some nights it feels like he’s been stuck in the same place for a lifetime.

* * *

Jean stares at the ceiling in the blue light. His lips tremble in the cold, he can see his breath in the air. Sometimes, he pretends he’s smoking, puts his fingers up in a tight v before his lips and breathes as if there’s a cigarette burning his throat.

He doesn’t do it often—it makes him crave a hit, something to really burn his chest.

Laying there every night— _day, morning, dawn, night, evening, afternoon, god he doesn’t know anymore_ —he doesn’t feel anything. If he sits still for too long, it gets to him. That he doesn’t feel anything. He hasn’t felt anything in a long time.

He paces.

He lays his hand against the window and watches his handprint slowly disappear in the frost.

When he’s really frustrated with it, he’ll break things, but they never stay broken. The alarm clock flashes it to him, 3 AM, no matter how many times he smashes it against the wall. There are no dents in the door where he fucking _railed_ his fists into it. There’s a quiet, insistent tapping that calls out to him and invades his ears, but there are no dents.

He wants to sleep, but he can’t lay down. Restless and frustrated—it gets worse the longer he’s alone.

He just wants to burn, to feel something in his lungs, to breathe and ache, but it’s all empty, empty.

Sometimes Jean will stare at the ceiling, unblinking for hours on end, praying for a dream. Just one dream. Something to take him away. Something to hold, because goddammit he needs something to hold.

_Dream. Dream. Dream—just one dream, please._

* * *

“You going to sleep?” Jean whispers, lifting his head from his pillow to watch Marco’s lips stretch around a yawn.

Marco arches his back to get the kinks out as he puts his hand over his mouth. It’s late, something he knows without having to look at his watch. There’s no light but the faint gold of Jean’s room; there’s no sound but their tired whispers, traded between bouts of quiet laughter. They’ve been talking all day, as if tomorrow isn’t Monday and Marco never has to leave.

Marco sighs and leans his head back to look up at the ceiling. “I probably should,” he whispers finally, turning his head to look at Jean again.

Jean just sighs back, pressing his face against his pillow. The light from his TV becomes noticeably dimmer, gold fading into a strange pale green before settling into its usual blue. “Oh,” he whispers finally. “Yeah. You’ve got work tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” Marco answers, but he doesn’t move. He sits there for at least another minute in silence, staring at the ceiling.

He doesn’t want to leave. He looks over at the staircase and imagines looking up into the darkness. Something clenches in his stomach at the thought, a sad sort of pain that makes him gasp.

Jean’s head shoots up to look at him again. “You okay?” he asks.

Marco swallows and closes his eyes. “Would you mind if I stay down here?” he murmurs.

Jean stays silent for a long moment, leaving Marco to scold himself for asking. Jean’s probably exhausted, they’ve been talking all day—he doesn’t expect Jean’s tiny, “Please.”

But he doesn’t say anything either, doesn’t point out that it sounds so sad and small. He just smiles a little. “Okay.”

It’s 3:13 AM when Marco decides not to confront the ghosts hiding in his room, and by the time he’s fallen asleep, the sun is shining through the window.

For a long time, Jean stares at the peaceful man fast asleep on his couch. Curled up and small, lips parted as he murmurs quietly in his sleep.

It’s painful, physically painful to watch his eyes flicker behind his eyelids as he dreams. But something about it… gives Jean _peace_. He doesn’t feel restless, doesn’t feel frustrated. _It’s creepy_ , he thinks. Watching someone sleep, it’s so creepy. But he doesn’t stop.

He imagines, in some part of his mind, pulling a blanket over Marco’s shoulders, to keep him warm. Deeper, in the very back of his mind, he imagines lying behind Marco and holding him close to his chest. He wonders, what would it feel like? The rise and fall of Marco’s chest against the palm of his hand as he breathes? The warmth of Marco’s stomach against his forearm as he wraps his arms around his waist? The hard line of his spine against Jean’s chest and stomach, or the scent of his hair, soft against his nose?

When Jean finds these thoughts floating there in his mind, he doesn’t hesitate to hold onto them. They’re dreams, little dreams. His _own_ dreams. He hasn’t had one in so long.

“Thank you,” he whispers—to Marco, to himself, to no one, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.

He indulges in the dream of kissing the nape of Marco’s neck before he finally closes his eyes and smiles into his pillow.

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on the first prompt of Jeanmarco Week 2015 (which was fOREVER AGO UGH, I'M SO LATE!!). The prompt was: Begin Again/Dream On! =D This takes place after chapter five and before chapter six, timeline wise.
> 
> Oh and the title is from a song called Bloodstream by Stateless, you should totally give it a listen if you get a chance! =DDD
> 
> So I hope you like this little insight into Jean's POV!! =DD Also, I promise I'm working on the next chapter, orz, I'm so slow, I'm sorry...


End file.
